


Norman

by TortiTabby



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Established Relationship, Fish, M/M, fish talk, kinda a crack fic, look this all just HAPPENED okay?, macrophilia mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 02:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TortiTabby/pseuds/TortiTabby
Summary: Dan is a fish.





	Norman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chiridotalaevis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiridotalaevis/gifts).

> thank you to @quercussp for inspiring this ... whatever this is lol  
I hope you like it <3

Dan couldn't breathe. He choked on the air and flailed around in their bedsheets, waking himself up in the process. This was the fourth time in the past two weeks he woke up struggling to breathe. It was always dreams about water and he was drowning in them, waking up terrified and scaring Phil just as bad in the process. This time, though, he kept struggling once he was awake.

He gasped loudly, desperate to fill his lungs with oxygen. His throat burned and he touched the side of his neck.  _ What was that. _

He jumped out of bed and ran into their on suite bathroom. 

"Dan?" Phil called out groggily, no doubt woken up by Dan's panic. 

He didn't respond and instead gripped the sink tight as he looked at the reflection of himself staring back with red panicked eyes. 

What the fuck. What the  _ fuck _ .

At each side of his neck, neat in a row were four gills fluttering under his fingers. 

He turned the showerhead on in the bathtub and dunked his head into the stream right as Phil staggered into the room. 

"What are you doing?" 

Dan relaxed as he was finally able to breathe a small amount He could see the concerned look on Phil’s face through the spray.

“I know this sounds crazy, Phil, and I’m scared, but-”

“What’s wrong with your legs?” Phil interrupted. “And you’re chest? Dan? What is happening?” There was an edge of hysteria to Phil’s voice and Dan braced himself as he glanced down.

Long lines ran up his legs in various shades of blue and black. They were small, almost pinstriped. He looked to his chest and it was unmistakable. Scales. 

They covered his body at a rapid pace and he fell backwards into the bathtub. It felt as though he was falling forever and then he hit the bottom of it. Hard. He tried to sit back up but just flopped violently on his side. 

A massive face, larger than the moon when it hung full in the sky, blocked out everything else Dan could see as it leaned over the bathtub. 

Part of him calmed. It was Phil. But it was Phil forty times larger than he had been minutes ago. 

Still, it was Phil’s face that he knew better than anything else in the world and it was drained of color and pinched in worry as he leaned down and scooped Dan into his hands. 

He ran to the kitchen, jostling Dan around in his hand that was wrapped tight around Dan’s now tiny body.

Dan closed his eyes. It was hard to breathe again but that took a back seat compared to trying to wrap his head around what was going on. 

He could hear the tap running and Phil quietly cursing to himself while he danced from foot to foot. 

Phil threw him into a vase of cool, clear water. It was cold and it didn’t feel right, but Dan could breathe and move and that would be all very well and great if he wasn’t a fucking fish somehow.

“Phil what the fuck! What happened to me?  _ Am I really a fucking fish _ ?” He was sure if he was able to he’d be crying. 

“Hey. Calm down. We’ll figure this out, okay? Yes,” he added dryly, “somehow you  _ are _ a fish… but you’re also really pretty?” 

Dan snorted before he stopped and quickly swam to the glass. “You can hear me? How does that make any sense?” 

Phil blinked at him in surprise. “I guess that just isn’t the weirdest part of this for me?”

“I  _ know _ you are  _ not _ being cheeky right now while I’m a fucking fish in a glass in your hand.” 

Phil giggled and the cup shook, sloshing water out of the top. 

“Oi! Watch it!”

“Sorry!’ Phil squeaked. “And I can hear you talk but I think… it might just be in my head, not outloud?” 

Dan hummed and swam leisurely in slow circles. 

“Come on.” Phil stood up and grabbed the container.

He carefully brought him into the lounge and turned the tv on. 

“It’s too late to panic and nobody would ever believe us so we are going to watch old episodes of friends and try to relax.” He said, all business with no room for argument. 

Dan agreed and swam to the edge to watch the television screen. It wasn’t as distorted as he was afraid it would be.

Three episodes later and he was losing the battle to sleep. He quickly swam back over to face Phil and tried to ignore the small burst of pride at the beautiful colors of his tail swishing through the water out of the corner of his eye. 

“I’m going to try to sleep, I’m beat.” 

Phil snored in response, clearly way ahead of Dan.

Dan woke up throughout the night and then stayed awake to watch Phil stir on the couch. Confusion was written all over his face as he blinked away to see a vase full of water with a bright blue betta fish staring him down inside of it. 

“Dan? You?- Oh,” He nodded to himself and then sighed. 

“Do you think this is because all of the  macrophilia jokes?” he asked after a few minutes of sitting in silence.

“Wha-Phil! No! I’m not just tiny I’m a _betta_ _fish_!”

Phil laughed, tongue pinched between his teeth in the endearing way that made Dan’s heart swoop. 

Phil made himself cereal and dropped a few pieces into the water for Dan. Dan picked at them and was distraught that he could only taste a vague sweetness of the now soggy cereal. 

“I wanted to take a bath with you today.” Phil pouted. 

“So take a bath with me.” Dan shrugged. “Just be careful and don’t have the water that warm. You should probably pass on the bathbomb, too. I guess cuddling won’t be quite what it was... ” he trailed off.

“Okay.” Phil stood up and took them to the bathroom.

“What?” 

“I said okay, let’s take a bath.” Phil set Dan down and rinsed himself off in the shower before he googled safe water temperatures for betta fish and ran the water.

“You ready?” He asked once the bathtub was full. 

“Phil this is stupid. It was a joke.” 

“I won’t do it if you don’t want to. I’m just trying to… I know this is stupid but I miss you. I hate that you’re stuck in this tiny container and I’m doing this all wrong but if you want to take a bath with me we can take a short bath.” 

Dan nodded and watched Phil carefully sit in the tub. He grabbed the vase and set it on the edge of the tub.

“Mind my bits, now.” Phil warned. 

“Phil this isn’t a macrophilia thing.” Dan replied dryly. The truth was he felt isolated and terrified being kept away from the rest of the world, only able to see it from the glass and where Phil took him. He needed to stretch his fins and swim around in circles and feel Phil’s skin even if Phil couldn’t feel his. He could feel the suffocation feeling again and put it to the back of his mind.

Phil picked him up with shaky hands and carefully poured it into the bathtub at his side.

Dan knew something was off the second he hit the water. 

He gasped for air and thrashed around, splashing water all over the floor. 

“ _ Dan _ !” He felt hands on his side bring him up and wrap around him.

He was okay. He was back to normal.

“I was so worried you wouldn’t turn back. That was so scary. I’d live the rest of my life with you as a fish but what kind of quality of life would you have? I don’t think I can do fish sex! Nobody would believe me and then I’d just be the sad guy that probably killed his boyfriend and got a fish.” He tightened his hold on Dan, who just snuggled in closer. The water was tepid and he shivered. 

“I am not even going to humor any of that with a response right now. Let’s get out, yeah? I think we deserve dominoes for a week after this one.”

He climbed out of the bathtub and Phil gawked at him.

“You still have scales. Look they’re all over your body and up your neck! They really are pretty...” His voice grew quiet.

“But I’m probably going to turn back.” Dan finished his thought with a nod.

“No more baths with fish you. You turned back and nearly killed me. You scared me!”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Oh you were scared were you? Oh  _ no _ . Oi, and don’t call it fish me, it just makes it weirder,” 

Phil pressed his lips to Dan’s and laughed against them. 

  
  


The next day they delved into all of the research into owning a Betta fish they could find. Once they knew what they needed Phil was out the door to the nearest pet shop.

“Lucky you can’t come with Mr. Scaleyneck. We’d be there all day arguing about tank furniture, and we both know I’ll make the swankiest tank for you.” He closed the door with a delighted giggle drowning out Dan’s offended scoff. 

Dan pulled up amazon and bought an abundance of turtlenecks and long sleeve shirts. Boots and gloves as well as new pants just for the hell of it. He charged it all to Phil’s card with a smug smile.

The next week they carefully put everything together on the tank and even recorded it under the guise of finally getting that Lester-Howell household pet everyone was so eager for. Dan had turned into the fish a total of four times in that time. In the meanwhile they were working out a fairly decent system. Dan’s lungs would burn and at nearly three minutes exact he would turn either way. If Phil couldn’t be by his side for whatever reason he would spend time in a shallow bowl that was much too small for him, but better than breaking every vase they owned. It was a work in progress that became pretty clear after the third vase. One was in the bathroom with Phil, while he showered. He swore Dan was trying to kill him in the shower and deemed the bathroom a ‘fish free zone.’ 

Dan obsessed over every detail of the tank and was thrilled to swim around it once it was all set up.

Phil zoomed the camera in on the tank and Dan did a cutesy little swish for it. 

“Everybody meet Norman!” He cheered and ended the video with a wave at the tank and to the offended Betta glaring at him. 

“Norman!? Where did that come from?” He asked once the camera was away.

“Quit trying to kill me in the bathroom then!” 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to reblog it that'd be cool and I won't judge you!  
you can do so [ here! ](https://tortitabby.tumblr.com/post/188694826090/norman)


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